- One of the most iconic series of monuments in the Pacific islands is the Moai
- Moai is a group of huge statues of exaggerated human figures that are found only on the small, isolated island of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island
- The Moai were carved sometime between 1250 and 1500 AD by the island’s earliest inhabitants, and are believed to depict the people’s ancestors, who in their culture were held in the same regard as deities
- The moai and ahu were in use as early as AD 500, the majority were carved and erected between AD 1000 and 1650, and they were still standing when Jacob Roggeveen visited the island in 1722
- The Moai were chiseled and carved from tuff, a volcanic rock that is prevalent on the island
- They all feature the same characteristics of an oversized head, broad nose, and a mysterious, indecipherable facial expression
- Scientists have determined that as many as 887 of the statues were originally carved, but years of infighting among the island’s clans led to many being destroyed
- Today, only 394 are still standing, the largest of which is 30 feet tall and weighs over 70 tons
- Recent research has shown that certain statue sites, particularly the most important ones with great ahu platforms, were periodically ritually dismantled and reassembled with ever-larger statues
- Archaeologists have suggested that the moai thus marked were of pan-island ritual significance or perhaps sacred to a particular clan
- While there is a fairly solid consensus on why the Moai were erected, how the islanders did it is still up for debate
- The average Moai weighs several tons, and for years scientists were at a loss to describe how the monuments were transported from Rano Raraku, where most of them were constructed, to their various locations around the island
- In recent years, the most popular theory is that the builders used wooden sleds and log rollers to move the Moai, an answer that would also explain how the once verdant island became almost totally barren due to deforestation